MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Building a Consistently Excellent Culture: Bain's Manny Maceda

Bain & Company ranked first among all large U.S. employers on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2024 list. Worldwide managing partner emeritus Manny Maceda shares four tips on building the consistency that kind of success requires.

The strongest corporate cultures have a handful of core values that are deeply held by employees, shared widely throughout the organization, and consistently shape people’s behavior. But most organizations struggle to achieve cultural consistency: Distinctive microcultures coexist, acquired companies retain their legacy cultures, and adherence to core values decays over time.

Management consulting firm Bain & Company is an exception, based on our study of culture at more than 400 large companies. Bain also ranked first among all large U.S. employers on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2024 list, a distinction the company has achieved on five other occasions. Even more impressive, its culture has been consistently excellent over time and across geographies. Bain has been the top-ranked consulting firm on Glassdoor for 10 years in a row. When we analyzed how employees at global consulting firms rated their work culture by region, Bain ranked first in 18 of 22 countries.

About the Author

(Donald Sull) is a professor of the practice at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a cofounder of CultureX. Charles Sull is a cofounder of CultureX.

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